Fun with Ramadan, the First Day(s) of school, and Upcoming Adventures

Ramadan, the Muslim holy month (which, though determined by the lunar calendar, happens to coincide almost exactly with September this year) is an interesting time. As I mentioned in a previous post, Muslims are required to fast during the day (including drinking water… in the desert! Go figure...) and are prohibited from dancing or making loud music. Living in a Muslim country, these prohibitions also impact non-Muslims. We can’t eat or drink in public (including in a vehicle), and all of the nightclubs are closed. Most restaurants are closed during the day, and most shops close around midday. There is a trade-off though, and of late I’ve gotten to experience a few of the fun aspects of Ramadan, aspects that have been compared to the commercialization of Christmas in the West.

One of the traditions associated with Ramadan is the Iftar, or the breaking of the fast at sundown. When the Iftar call to prayer is issued from the mosques, the faithful are finally able to eat and drink, and the party begins (sans music and dancing, of course… the real party comes after Ramadan’s over, but more on that in a bit). There are numerous restaurants around Dubai that offer Iftar feasts and buffets, and I got to partake in one of these last night with some friends/colleagues/neighbors of mine at a nearby restaurant. The food was amazing, and quite reasonably priced (39 dirhams, which is about 11 U.S. dollars), and the atmosphere, especially with most of the patrons being bedecked in the traditional Emirati garb (white robes and white dishdash (the head curtain thingy they wear)), was really neat. [Sorry about the generic synonyms for “good” in the preceding sentence. I’m an English teacher; I really should do better.]

Although most of the shops are closed during the afternoon, they open after Iftar and many stay open until the wee hours of the morning. Furthermore, there are displays in the malls with traditional Bedouin and Arab displays exhibiting their culture and heritage, including live actors and animatronic camels. And then there’s the Ramadan lights. Traditionally, lanterns are hung for Ramadan decorations, and although we have some of those in our neighborhood, we also have strings of lights (like Christmas lights) strung across building faces and from street lamps. And just outside our building, we have a beautiful Ramadan tree (or so I’ve christened it… wait, can I “christen” a Muslim tradition?). It’s a tall date palm right around the corner from the mosque, and it has been bedecked in blue Ramadan lights that look ever so pretty at night. I’ve yet to see another in town (though I’m sure in some of the more traditional areas, like the one I live in, there are more), so I feel lucky that I get to see it fairly regularly.

I made it through my first week of teaching. I already know all of my kids’ names, so I’ve started to develop a rapport with my students. They are very respectful, using ‘sir’ and wishing me a good day as they leave class. My seventh and eighth graders have energy out the wazoo. My ninth and tenth graders need a jump start most days. Behavior and classroom management isn’t too much of an issue at the moment. My big thing to work on is forming and implementing a unit on the fly. We’ve got the structure for our first unit (that we finished just a week-and-a-half ago), but it’s gonna be a challenge to flesh that out (pacing, activities, etc.) on my first go. Luckily, I have a good team with me, so that’ll help as well.

I’m starting to see more and more of Dubai. I’ve made two excursions to Sheikh Zayed Road (the main drag in the more touristy part of town) in the past week, I’ve been to the Mall of the Emirates (and seen Ski Dubai through the glass), and I’ve discovered a really neat Italian restaurant on the banks of the Dubai Creek. I’ve also found a church that I’m planning on attending for a little while. Vicki, our librarian, goes there, as do a few other faculty members from our school (I knew we’d be seeing a lot of each other). It’s small, but there are a lot of good people there. I’m glad to get plugged back into a body of believers. I’ve also found a more few guys (some at church, and some in our apartment building who teach at our sister school) to hang out with, which will be nice, because outings involving shopping with the almost completely female group from my apartment building are really starting to get old.

Eid al-Fitr is the three day holiday at the end of Ramadan. As it currently stands, that will equate to a four-day weekend for the public sector (including schools) from October 1-4. There are rumors going around, however, that Eid will get called early, perhaps on the 29th or 30th of September (it all depends on when the guy in Saudi Arabia looks at the moon and says it’s over, but Eid coming early is supposedly a fairly regular occurance). If this happens, the Ministry of Education will probably shut down schools for the whole week (which is what happened last year, and what I believe schools in neighboring Abu Dhabi are already planning on doing). Air Arabia, a UAE airline based out of Sharjah (the emirate to our north, and really only a few kilometers from where I live in Dubai), is offering some sweet airline/hotel deals during September and October, so several of my colleagues and I plan to take advantage of this opportunity to travel a little. If Eid ends up being just the four days, like it currently is, I’m probably going to spend three days/two nights in Katmandu, Nepal. If Eid gets extended, I’ll be spending five days/four nights in Istanbul, Turkey. Exciting stuff, eh? Regardless, I’ll be going to both of them in the coming years, but I’m excited to start doing some more world exploring. And speaking of world exploring, this weekend I’m heading to Oman for a visa run (a trip across the border and back to renew my UAE visitor’s visa) with a bunch of my colleagues whose visitor’s visas are about to run out (and who have yet to receive their resident visas). I’ll probably be in Oman for less than an hour, and I certainly won’t get far into the country (this time), but I’ll be able to check another country off my list (with a star next to it to give it a more thorough return visit). Look out world, here I come!